Le catholicisme classique et les Pères de l’Église. Un retour aux sources (1669-1713) (review)

Abstract

Le catholicisme classique et les Pores de l'Eglise. Un retour aux sources (1669-1713). By Jean-Louis Quantin. [Collection des Etudes Augustiniennes, Serie Moyen-Age et Temps modernes, 33.] (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers. 1999. Pp. 667.170 FF; 986.29 BEF; 24.45 Euros.) The Classical of the title refers to French Catholicism in the classical period, roughly the age of Louis XIV Though the devotion, if not obsession, of the French with the Early is well documented, no one had previously dared to treat it as a subject in itself. The requirements to successfully reach this goal are indeed tremendous, since to a very extensive investigation into the massive literary production of the French, one has to associate the ability to judge its quality, evaluate its impact, and assess its influence. This is what in less than 650 pages J.-L. Quantin masterfully accomplishes. When, in response to Protestant challenge, the Council of Trent decided to invoke the consensus Patrum, it merely meant a general reference to the Tradition of the Church, but soon in the hands of the controversialists, this reference became an objective rule of faith. It was Cardinal Du Perron, an Ultramontane as Quantin reminds us, who established the rationale of this appeal to the Fathers. Since his French opponents accepted a debate where in addition to Holy Scripture early church history was considered significant, he developed the dogmatic theory of their authority: they were the undisputed witnesses of the faith of their time, therefore a sure criterion for discerning truth from error. Hence the wealth of historical research in seventeenth-century France concerning the first Christian centuries and the particular success of positive theology elaborated on these sources. Divided in two parts of seven chapters each, Quantin's book exposes first how the Fathers took such a prominent place in French theology and scholarship; then it examines what type of influence they exerted over the Gallican Church. After showing how the notion of Church Father was slowly established (chap. 1), the author studies how French Protestants and Catholics considered them (chap. 2), a perspective that placed the Gallican at variance with Tridentine positions (chap. 3), especially the Jansenist faction with its obsession with St. Augustine (chap. 4). The next two chapters carefully present and evaluate Gallican Patristics, edition of texts, writing of history; the last offers a general evaluation. In the second part, Quantin shows not only the deep influence exerted by Patristics over the life of educated French Catholics, especially through translations (chap. 11) and preaching (chap. 12), but also how the constant model of an idealized and abstract early produced a strong clerical drive to purify and reform post-Tridentine religious practice (chap. …